20140724_R4

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

URL: N/A

Date: 24/07/2014

Event: Report claims biomass from virgin wood may be emitting more CO2 than coal

Attribution: BBC Radio 4

People:

Roger Harrabin: BBC's Environment Analyst
Harry Huyton: Head of Climate Change Policy and Campaigns, RSPB
Sarah Montague: Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

Sarah Montague: Some of our biggest power stations create energy by burning wood pellets. The thinking is that if you burn wood from forestry waste and trees that were going to be cut down anyway, then it's good for the environment. That's why power companies get subsidies for it, because it helps meet our targets on renewable energy. But a new government analysis suggests that because many power stations use virgin wood that is cut down solely to be burned, then they may be emitting even more carbon than coal-fired power stations. Roger Harrabin, our Environment Analyst, is here - and Roger, from the sounds of it, it all depends where the wood is coming from.

Roger Harrabin: Absolutely right, and this report has been causing an awful lot of embarrassment for the government - it's been in gestation for two years now. The government has been refusing to answer any questions from me about it, for the past week, or even tell me when it was going to be published.

And what's happened is that the Department for Energy has made a really fundamental miscalculation, initially, with this, which is that basically, wood is renewable, new trees will soak up the carbon from old trees - but now they've acknowledged, in this report, that actually in certain circumstances, if you're cutting down virgin trees, for instance, whole trees and burning them, there will be more emissions than there would have been if you'd been burning coal.

That doesn't mean it can't be done sustainably, but it does mean that it's an awful lot more complicated than we previously thought. And a group of academics have written to - US academics have written to this government, saying that we should stop subsidies for this practice, completely - there's no real carbon saving, and it harms wildlife. But, as I say, it's very, very complicated.

Sarah Montague: Indeed. Do we know, of those wood pellets and wood that's burned in power stations in the UK, how much is from virgin wood and how much is from wood that was waste, and therefore is "good wood" for the environment?

Roger Harrabin: Well, that is the real problem, at the moment, Sarah. Environmentalists complain that although we now have this calculator, which is published today, there are no firm rules ensuring that good practice will happen. So, for instance, Drax, the biggest power station in the UK - and you'll be talking to their CEO, in a minute - I went with them to the US, they showed me their operations, they're just using "thinnings", where small trees are taken out to give room for bigger trees to grow. And they ship it over to the UK, and they say "Well, that's all sustainable".

But I saw another operation in the States where a timber mill was using whole trees from endangered swamp forest - and that, I'm told, was also going into the UK system for burning wood pellets. So, even if you have the rules, there's a massive and incredibly complicated supply chain out there that's very difficult to keep on top of.

Sarah Montague: Roger Harrabin, thank you very much. And, as Roger mentioned, we're joined by Drax's Chief Executive, Dorothy Thompson. We'll speak to the RSPB in a minute, but Dorothy Thompson, good morning.

Dorothy Thompson: Well, hearing Roger, I realise I have the advantage here, because our experts were asked to peer-review part of this report. And actually it doesn't quite come out as described by Roger. What the report describes is different theoretical scenarios for buying biomass or wood pellets, and it considers some good ways to do that and some bad ways. And it concludes, as you might expect, that if biomass is bought in a good and responsible way, then that delivers major carbon savings and is truly sustainable.

Sarah Montague: Which is what Roger said.

Dorothy Thompson: Which is what Roger said - well, and what the report covers is both sides, and comes to what we think is a positive conclusion, that biomass can truly be sustainable. It also shows -

Sarah Montague: I suppose the question is; is it? Irrespective, in a sense, of what's in the report, you're saying; "Look, it covers different scenarios, in the report", and we've - Roger made the point that they've obviously been quite sensitive about it, and I think it's been delayed in its publication. But in terms of what you know of what is going on, do you know that Drax power stations are using thinnings, offcuts, waste in every example?

Dorothy Thompson: What I know is that we are delivering sustainable fuel on a lower-carbon basis. And I know that because we've had this really robust policy that's externally audited. And we have two cardinal rules - one is that the biomass comes from a place where there is no depletion of the carbon stock. So if it's forest, and that forest is being used commercially, that the rate of harvest is no bigger - in fact, hopefully smaller - than - sorry, the rate of harvest is less than the rate of growth, so the carbon stock is -

Sarah Montague: So you're growing more trees -

Dorothy Thompson: Exactly.

Sarah Montague: - than you're cutting.

Dorothy Thompson: It's the overall forest, because you don't grow a tree for the low-value stuff we use. You grow a tree for the beautiful plank, for the wooden table. So the first is that. But the second - and it's really important - is we measure the carbon cost of our whole supply chain, to ensure that it truly is a low-carbon -

Sarah Montague: Including the transport, if it's coming from the States.

Dorothy Thompson: Including the transport.

Sarah Montague: Okay - Dorothy Thompson, thank you very much. Listening to that is the Head of Climate Change at the RSPB, Harry Huyton. Harry, should we be reassured by that?

Harry Huyton: I think this study effectively confirms what we've known for a long time. So, as we're hearing, biomass can be bad for the climate, it can be good. But at the moment, we don't have the assurances beyond - and I think it's excellent that Drax are attempting to look into its supply chains and attempting to show it's low carbon - but it's not enough.

Sarah Montague: Sorry, Dorothy Thompson was really clear, there - she said we know, we're measuring it.

Harry Huyton: Um, they might know but we don't know. We haven't seen any evidence that the standards that government have introduced are going to rule out the biomass that is bad - the wood, that virgin wood that is cut down solely for power can still get public subsidy. Um, and so we're in a situation, at the moment -

Sarah Montague: But - but we're - I suppose what we're being told by Drax is that they don't do it. There may be others who do, and the rules may not be tight enough, but Drax is saying "Look, we don't".

Harry Huyton: Well, there's two things, there. One is: this public subsidy for biomass is available to many companies, so even if Drax are able to meet those standards and to independently show that they've been met, there might be others who aren't, so I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that government should introduce a standard that rules out that biomass that is bad for the climate.

But there's another thing, which is scale. So, at the moment, there's a couple of million tonnes of wood being burned in power stations, here in the UK. But if Drax converted its boilers and if other power stations follow suit, the sheer scale of demand is going to be immense, so Drax alone, from your figures, Dorothy, it's around seven million tonnes of wood would be needed - that's more than the entire UK harvest.

Huge amounts of wood - can it really be met by residues and thinnings? Probably not. And we already have anecdotal evidence, as Roger mentioned, of whole trees from swamp forests - really important for wildlife, incidentally - going into the biomass supply chain. So it's quite clear that the standards aren't yet good enough to rule out the biomass that is bad for the climate. And so we're asking that this leads to a review of policy and a review of those subsidies.

Sarah Montague: Harry Huyton, Dorothy Thompson and Roger Harrabin, thank you.